Prince George’s County, MD and Corvias Complete Stormwater Partnership Ahead of Schedule, Under Budget

The Clean Water Partnership (CWP), a 30-year community-based public-private partnership (CBP3) between Prince George’s County, Maryland and Corvias, has achieved a tremendous milestone with the completion of the initial pilot phase in half the time, under budget, all while increasing outreach to key community stakeholders and investing in Prince George’s County’s small minority and disadvantaged businesses.

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“Corvias elevates what municipalities can do on their own and turns daunting and costly regulations into thriving programs with benefits beyond simple governance and improved water quality,” said John Picerne, Founder at Corvias. “With our partners in Prince George’s County, we successfully implemented and completed a large scale CBP3 model solution to stormwater management, turning a regulatory mandate and fiscal burden into a program that positively impacts the health of the local watersheds and Chesapeake Bay and also improves the community with greater socio-economic impact.”

The CWP developed and implemented a turnkey stormwater management program that proved the ability to achieve regulatory compliance requirements, and create greater community buy-in and education along with long-term local economic benefits for residents and local small minority disadvantaged businesses. The recently released report shows the Clean Water Partnership has accomplished those objectives and completed the initial pilot retrofitting 2,000 acres using greater than 87% local minority and target class County businesses, and saving the County more than 40% compared to traditional, non-bundled procurements.

“This unique partnership has allowed Corvias to aggregate the County’s stormwater challenges into a performance-based, investable program,” said Greg Cannito, Partnership Innovator for Corvias. “This partnership demonstrates how to meet regulatory compliance, while reducing the burden on local government budgets, creating economic growth, and fostering better local development practices.”

The full report provides results and statistics, and is available for download at https://thecleanwaterpartnership.com/annual-report/. Highlights include:

• Completed and certified retrofits over 2,000 acres – equivalent to 1,407 football fields – across 94 different projects in only 36 months. This includes projects on public schools, municipal sites, public ponds, and private property as a part of the Alternative Compliance Program. To date the Project has resulted in pollutant load reductions including 32,614 lbs. of total nitrogen, 3,269 lbs. of total phosphorous and 1,834,791 total lbs. of total suspended solid per year.
• Greening and beautifying our landscape planting 250 trees – equivalent to 65,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year – and over 6,000 shrubs and improving our local rivers and streams removing over 1.8M pounds of sediment across our County.
• 30 years of growth and investment with $132 million total economic impact of local spending, $14.6 million total tax revenue from retrofits, and 94 percent of total economic impacts will be local.
• Investing $500,000 to youth and educational programs, creating an incubator and mentor protégé development program for over 15 Prince George’s County local small minority disadvantaged businesses, supporting paid internship opportunities for 50 students.
• 15 church retrofits through the alternate compliance program (ACP), 22 schools through the partnership with the Prince George’s County Public Schools System (PGCPS), and 23 retrofits on municipal properties throughout the County through the municipal outreach program.

“The value of this partnership is multifaceted,” said Keisha Brown, Partnership Liaison for Corvias. “From the increase of the community’s awareness of adverse effects of polluted runoff to the growth of small businesses focused on green infrastructure, the EPA has validated the Clean Water Partnership as a best practice for municipalities looking to make significant environmental improvements.”

The CWP has received national recognition from the White House and EPA. The CWP has also been highlighted as a successful and innovative approach to better infrastructure from the Natural Resource Defense Council (NRDC). As a result of this success and recognition of the initial pilot program, many jurisdictions in the State and around the country are looking at the CWP and its results as a model to address their specific needs and requirements to tackle aging infrastructure. Universities are also paying close attention to the record breaking success of the program and have used the CWP as a case study for their student projects.

About the Clean Water Partnership

The Clean Water Partnership is a nationally recognized, groundbreaking public-private partnership between Prince George’s County, MD and Corvias to retrofit up to 2,000 acres of impervious surfaces using green infrastructure. Further, the Partnership is also tasked with driving local economic development by using local, small and minority businesses to build local capacity.

About Corvias

Corvias is a privately-owned company that strives to tackle tough, large-scale challenges through trusted partnerships that put client interests first; focus more on performance than profit; and, produce sustainable long-term solutions. We work on behalf of the U.S. military, colleges and universities, and public sector agencies to develop tailored solutions that remedy some of America’s most challenging deficiencies in infrastructure and facilities caused by chronic underinvestment. Corvias is governed by three core principles: Be the best provider of service; be the best place to work; and, generously give back to the communities where we live and serve. Corvias (kor-vee-us) is headquartered in East Greenwich, R.I.

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